[crazygringo]

> to introduce a level of accountability... without the burden of regulation

Why? What's wrong with regulation?

The whole point of regulation is safety and accountability and fairness.

Yes things can be over-regulated, but then the solution is to regulate properly, not over-regulate. The reason we don't have libertarian or anarchist societies is because they fundamentally can't solve the problems around safety, accountability, and fairness.

[amanaplanacanal]

I wonder if we should think about getting rid of limited liability corporations? Hit the capitalist class where it hurts.

[ikiris]

Nothing says well functioning society like the ability to sue someone after you were life alteringly poisoned.

[prairieroadent]

my point is that regulation is a burden, not that it isn't the next step... from my point of view regulation is a workaround for our nightmare of an education system where giving kids a proper schooling is considered dangerous and a threat to national security

[toast0]

What sort of proper schooling allows one to detect lead in ground turmeric?

I guess proper schooling would help one understand the analysis techniques, but the machines are pretty expensive and most people don't have one at home.

Regulations that require food products to be regularly surveyed for heavy metals or other contaminants seem more effective than requiring every household to own and operate analysis machines.

Regulations that require foods to be tracked with origin and batch information makes it a lot easier to find out where contaminants entered the system, rather than requiring kids to go around playing Carmen Sandiego. It also helps save money with recalls when there's specific evidence to include only specific batches.

[prairieroadent]

if the population was thoroughly educated then I imagine most food would be bought direct from farmers with test published alongside the crop because the population understands the importance of unadulterated food and are armed with the ability to test their food cheaply... once relationships are established with farmers and food providers then the need to test becomes less frequent

[crazygringo]

I don't have any farmers within a fifty miles of me, I don't think. I live in a major city surrounded by suburbs.

And how exactly am I going to know the farmer's published tests are correct?

And there aren't cheap tests for everyone to test all their food for thousands of different possible contaminants. That's wishful thinking.

And why do you think testing would need to become less frequent when relationships are established? It's a tried-and-true business technique to gain a reputation of high quality, then rake in the big bucks by switching selling low-quality stuff that people are fooled by.

You can understand why it's about 100,000x more efficient for everyone to say, hey, why don't we hire actual experts and give them the expensive equipment people can't afford on their own to do all these tests for us, and levy huge fines when farmers and corporations adulterate their food or otherwise make it unsafe? And we can call the rules farmers and corporations have to follow "regulations".

I genuinely don't understand why you think it should be legal for farmers to add lead to turmeric and try to sell it, and then put the responsibility on the consumer to test. I mean, do you think it should be legal for people to murder each other, and put the responsibility on others to avoid getting murdered? And if not, then why do you think poisoning people with lead is any different?

[searine]

Exactly, we need a label, maybe call it "Nutrition Facts" or something like that which lists all ingredients.

We'd need a way to enforce it though. Maybe make the farmers pinky-swear not to lie on the label because it is cheaper to lie than tell the truth? Do you think that would be enough?

If only there was some kind of group ... or administration even ... specifically tasked with making sure foods are unadulterated. Of course we can't have that though, because that would be regulation and businesses are perfect special little angels and would never ever lie. God forbid we place an evil burden like regulation on a business poisoning all of south-asia with lead.

[searine]

>my point is that regulation is a burden

By definition. Like a laws against murder are a burden to murderers.

The key to stopping murders isn't "get rid of the murder laws", but fix what made these people people violent (like lead poisoning?). Or in the context of this kind of regulation, the solution isn't to get rid of regulation, but make business account for the costs of their externalities from the beginning (rather than being forced to be moral by the government).

[esseph]

You really don't understand human beings at all, and this is coming from someone who also doesn't understand human beings.